FOI reveals NHS struggling to monitor the safety and efficacy of its services outsourced

The NHS is struggling to monitor and assess the safety and efficacy of services it has outsourced to private providers, according to a report published this week.

Local clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) now spend 16 per cent of their care budget in the private sector and need to manage, monitor and enforce some 15,000 contracts with private providers.

A growing number of the contracts are with large multinationals and companies backed by private equity, of which only seven have been terminated due to failings, a report by the independent think-tank Centre for Health and the Public Interest (CHPI) discovered.

I am a journalist and author. I am a staff writer at the UK edition of WIRED magazine and in 2015 my book, Freedom of Information: A Practical Guide for UK Journalists, was published. I created FOI Directory in 2012.